Reid's office points out developing more renewable power will create jobs in Nevada that can't be outsourced and reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil. (It's also good for the environment.)

And while Reid said in that April interview that "Every day that goes by, the ability to produce solar [energy] is cheaper," the fact is, it's more expensive than coal and natural gas right now. Someday, green power may be cheaper than anything else. But that day isn't here yet, and until it arrives, Reid must mind the costs and the conflicts.

NFRW President Rae Chornenky, left, helps make phone calls at
the Romney Victory office in Arlington, Va., on July 30.
Several NFRW staffers were also on hand to help with the phone bank.

Would you like to help send Mitt Romney to the White House without ever leaving your home? The "Volunteer for Mitt" program is up and running for supporters who can spare a few minutes to make personal calls to other voters across the country.

The latest blow to the Feinstein campaign comes in the form of the CBRT Pepperdine poll released this morning:

Compared with the Field Poll released last month, Sen. Feinstein’s lead has shrunk from 19% to 12.3% among all voters, and just 10.3% among those who will “definitely” vote.

It is widely accepted that any incumbent polling below 50% has cause for concern, especially when the incumbent is already well known to the electorate. Feinstein continues to poll well under 50%, and leads with just 45.9% among all voters. By contrast, President Obama is polling at 52.4%, or 6.5% better than Feinstein, who has been in the office for nearly 20 years.

The California political environment continues to be a hostile one for anyone who is perceived to be in charge. Democrats control the Governor’s office, both houses of the state legislature, a majority of the Congressional delegation, and both U.S. Senate seats. Democrat elected officials and candidates cannot escape the fact they will be held responsible for the state’s downward trajectory.

An overwhelming 73.1% of voters believe the state to be on the wrong track.
Although a plurality of the state’s voters are of his party, Gov. Jerry Brown’s approval ratings continue to be upside down: 41.7% of voters view him favorably, while 50.8% hold an unfavorable view. In elections we know emotion drives behavior, which is why we pay careful attention to voter intensity as a key driver of turnout. Remarkably, while only 8.2% of voters hold a “very favorable” view of the Democrat governor, three times as many voters hold a “very unfavorable” view (25.6%).

Among the 19% of California voters who consider themselves moderates or independent, a key constituency, Brown’s numbers are upside down by 11.9% (40.2% fav to 52.1% unfav), making him an ineffective messenger to swing voters going into the fall.

The Democrat-controlled state legislature fares even worse, with 76.7% of voters holding an unfavorable view compared to just 15% who view it favorably. Only 0.7% of Californians hold a “very favorable” view of the legislature, which we call the “Democrat legislative staffer vote.”

LABOR UNIONS HAVE BIGGER FISH TO FRY

While organized labor often provides the voter turnout mechanism California Democrats depend on, the latest survey data shows labor officials will need to concentrate their resources on persuading their own base to oppose Proposition 32, which would radically curtail labor’s ability to divert union funds to politics in future elections and is therefore at the top of labor’s “kill list.”

Proposition 32 currently leads by a substantial 35 points, (62.7% yes to 28.2% no) among all voters, and by 20% among Democrats (54.4% to 34.2%). Every dollar labor spends having to convince Democrats to vote their way on an issue is a dollar they do not have available for turnout operations, which is just fine by us.

The big tax hike Democrats are pushing for is also in trouble, as Proposition 30 barely scrapes past a majority with 52.5% support. Rarely do these measures garner more support once the television ad wars begin, and the defeat of Proposition 29 in June provided another indicator voters are not in the mood for higher taxes.

STATE OF THE RACE

We recognize that the campaign to replace Dianne Feinstein is an intense, uphill battle against an entrenched Democrat establishment in the Senate and in California, and that over 90% of Senate incumbents tend to win re-election.

Yet, in this cycle we have also seen conventional wisdom defied in Indiana (incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar defeated by tea party favorite Richard Mourdock), Texas (Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst defeated by Ted Cruz), and other races. We continue to press Sen. Feinstein to get past her reluctance to debate Elizabeth Emken, and allow the voters the opportunity to see the incumbent defend her record one-on-one before the voters for the first time in twelve years.

You don't have to wait for a debate to meet Elizabeth in person. We're looking forward to her appearance at the California Republican Party's Fall Convention, scheduled for August 10-12th at the Los Angeles Airport Burbank Marriott. She'll be speaking at the Saturday executive committee luncheon, which is open to all attendees. Click ◼ HERE for more information.

Obama’s approval rating is below 50 percent in 37 states, ranging from a 26 percent rating in Utah to a 49 percent rating in Michigan. Obama is at 50 percent or higher in just 13 states, from a 50 percent rating in Minnesota to a 63 percent rating in Hawaii. The president is most popular in Washington DC, where his job approval rating is an astonishing 83 percent.

In recent years, Hollywood conservatives have been as deep in the closet as 1950s gays. But Barack Obama, the man of hope and change, has changed that. The times are so terrible that more and more entertainment industry conservatives are coming out and risking irritating their fuddy-duddy liberal peers, maybe even losing a job or two into the bargain.

The latter is not a problem for the latest Hollywood con to come out, Clint Eastwood, who just publicly endorsed Romney with the words “the country is in need of a boost.” (No kidding!)

...his coming out is not inconsequential. One wonders what his peers — the Redfords, Beattys, etc. – think. Some of them are such knee-jerk liberals that they probably just put it down to Clint imitating his make-my-day character and don’t give it another thought. But I suspect not all. The extremity of the economic situation is not lost on all these people. They just don’t have the guts to speak. Walking around Hollywood now is not like it was a year or two ago. You don’t hear anyone publicly defending Obama. What you get mostly is silence and a seeming desire to change the subject.

One of the more messianic moments of the 2008 presidential campaign came when Michele Obama promised that her husband would heal us all.

Only Barack Obama could help us all "fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."

Four years later, it has become more apparent than ever that it is President Obama whose soul is broken. His presidency collapsing around him, the true colors of the man have come to light. What we see now is not pretty.....

A House report on the Solyndra bankruptcy showed that Emanuel was a driving figure behind President Obama’s appearance at the Solyndra factory — he was “super hot” to do the event, according to White House aide Ron Klain — because he believed that “[j]obs and high tech and Recovery Act is a winning combination.”

The report also indicates that Emanuel’s interest played a role in the White House supporting the loan guarantee, based in part on a 2009 email that Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Policy, wrote to another White House staffer.

“In addition, Ms. Zichal stated that ‘folks in the financing community’ had also raised concerns about the Solyndra loan guarantee, ‘[b]ut if Rahm wants it, we’ll make it happen,’” the report says of the email.

With just three months left before Election Day, President Obama got some badly-needed good news on the jobs front Friday, as a Labor Department report showed the U.S. economy added a better-than-expected 163,000 jobs in July.

The unemployment rate, however, ticked up to 8.3 percent, which Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the GOP seized upon to argue that the Obama administration is still not creating jobs quickly enough.

The mixed messages suggest the latest jobs data will not change the rhetoric coming from either campaign.

Romney called the report a "hammer blow to struggling middle-class families" in a statement shortly after the July numbers were released.

"President Obama doesn’t have a plan and believes that the private sector is ‘doing fine.’ Obviously, that is not the case," he said. "We’ve now gone 42 consecutive months with the unemployment rate above eight percent."

Stronger job creation could help President Barack Obama's re-election hopes. Still, the unemployment rate has been above 8 percent since his first month in office — the longest stretch on record. No president since World War II has faced re-election with unemployment over 8 percent.

The government's most widely publicized unemployment rate measures only those who are out of a job and currently looking for work. It does not count discouraged potential employees who have quit looking, nor those who are underemployed — wanting to work full-time but forced to work part-time.

For that count, the government releases a separate number called the "U-6," which provides a more complete tally of how many people really are out of work.

The numbers in some cases are startling.

Consider: Nevada's U-6 rate is 22.1 percent, up from just 7.6 percent in 2007. Economically troubled California has a 20.3 percent real rate, while Rhode Island is at 18.3 percent, more than double its 8.3 percent rate in 2007.

Those numbers compare especially unfavorably to the national rate, high in itself at 14.9 percent though off its record peak of 17.2 percent in October 2009.

(They) did not mention that 195,000 fewer Americans had jobs this month as opposed to last month, as 150,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force (and so were not counted in the Labor Department’s calculation of the unemployment rate).

A year ago, the president demanded a $500 billion "sequester" of defense dollars as a penalty should Congress fail to cut a grand debt deal. Congress of course failed, and Mr. Obama's sequester is now imminent. The sequester slash comes on top of the $487 billion in defense cuts Mr. Obama had already ordered in January of this year, threatening the likes of Mansfield.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned of the damage the sequester will do to national security. Yet the far more immediate political problem for Mr. Obama is that the cuts are compounding his domestic jobs liability—in the final stretch of the campaign.

More than one million lost private-sector jobs, to get down to it, as estimated by groups ranging from the National Association of Manufacturers to the Aerospace Industries Association. Military jobs are on the block, but the bulk of the pink slips will come from private businesses—from giant defense companies on down to smaller businesses that are the economic mainstays of their communities.

It’s important to understand how California income taxes stack up against the other 49 states. California already has the 2nd highest state income tax rate in the nation (behind Hawaii’s 11.0%). Our 9.3% tax bracket starts at $48,029 for people filing as individuals. Our 10.3% tax starts at $1,000,000.

Consider the Brown “millionaires’ tax.” It would raise that rate to 13.3%, starting at $500,000 – including capital gains. If approved, CA will be by far #1 in income tax rates. We will be 21% higher than the 2nd highest state (Hawaii), 34% higher than the 3rd highest state (Oregon), and a heck of a lot higher than all the rest – including seven states with zero state income tax.

That’s exactly what the Democratic party is doing. The upcoming presidential campaigns are eager to get their hands on the treasure trove of voter data that 900 million users have voluntarily posted on Facebook. Enter Social Organizing, a new tool developed by Democratic activist group NGP VAN. Using it, your friends can log in to Facebook and tell the service about you. You can then be added to a caller database, pinged for ads and harassed during the entire election....

President Obama tapped this company, which describes itself as “the leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations” and only works with the Democratic Party, to gather voter data in 2008....

The expert advice: First, head to ◼ Facebook’s privacy controls and make sure of how much you’re sharing, and with whom. Then choose your friends wisely. In a way, this “friend” is using the relationship for political gain, and yet you might have any knowledge that this social mining is happening.

“Anyone can take information and match it with public information and sell the result to someone else,” Enderle told FoxNews.com. “It's perfectly legal and not even immoral. But those are not the friends you want.”

Obama’s usual campaign method, used in 100 percent of his races, has been to pry into the private records of his opponents.

Democrats aren’t going to find any personal dirt on the clean-cut Mormon, so they need complicated tax filings going back decades in order to create the illusion of scandal out of boring financial records.

Romney has already released his 2010 tax return and is about to release his 2011 return. After all the huffing and puffing by the media demanding those returns, the follow-up story vanished remarkably quickly when the only thing the return showed was that Romney pays millions of dollars in taxes and gives a lot of money to charity.

Let’s take a romp down memory lane and review the typical Obama campaign strategy. Obama became a U.S. senator only by virtue of David Axelrod’s former employer, the Chicago Tribune, ripping open the sealed divorce records of Obama’s two principal opponents....

It’s almost like a serial killer’s signature. Unsealed personal records have been released to the press. Obama must be running for office!

So you can see what a pickle the Obama campaign is in having to run against a Dudley Do-Right, non-drinking, non-smoking, God-fearing, happily married Mormon.

They’ve got to get their hands on thousands of pages of Romney’s tax filings so that the media can — as Romney says — lie about them. It will be interesting to see if Obama can pick the lock of the famously guarded IRS.

Graham Spanier is the former Penn State University president who was fired during the Jerry Sandusky investigation for failing to properly investigate Sandusky when the pedophilia allegations first surfaced.
Spanier's "investigation" of Jerry Sandusky was so thoroughly inept that it got him fired. When it was completed, Spanier stated that he had "complete confidence in how they have handled the allegations against Sandusky," and he was fired very shortly thereafter. The recent Freeh report indicates that the investigation was conducted for the purpose of finding nothing. In other words, it was a cover-up.

It wasn't the only time Spanier rigged an inept investigation for the purpose of finding nothing. In 2010, his investigators found that Penn State climatologist Michael Mann had done nothing wrong when he invented his "hockey stick trick," to "hide the decline" and lend false credibility to climate change theory. The difference between the Mann investigation and the Sandusky investigation is that one covered up a sex offender and the other covered up a fraud....More at the link.

The past two weeks have brought to light a truly disturbing political demonstration — and it has nothing to do with presidential elections or generic congressional ballots. At least three mayors in some of America's largest cities, as well as plenty of other city officials, have publicly demanded political orthodoxy as a condition of doing business in their metropolises. Political correctness has transformed into a strange American version of fascism — over a chicken fillet sandwich and an opinion about marriage that even our Democratic president officially held as recently as two months ago.

But the word "tax" is nowhere to be found. The closest Brown or other speakers in the tightly scripted ad come to the T-word is "new revenues."

Mostly, it touts Brown's efforts to cut state spending and declares -- wrongly -- that the state's credit rating has improved.

"We've made progress, but we still have very serious budget problems in California," Brown says in the ad. "We simply have to take a stand against further budget cuts for schools or for our public safety. To do that, we're going to the people."

Opponents of Proposition 30, which would raise sales taxes slightly on everyone, and income taxes sharply on high-income Californians, don't shy away from "tax."

"Sacramento politicians have turned their backs on education and public safety and voted to waste billions on the largest boondoggle in American history," Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, says in its new anti-Proposition 30 radio spot. "These same politicians are using scare tactics to force tax increases on the working people of California. While they push for more taxes, frivolous spending and political cronyism, they ignore desperately needed reforms to education, pensions and spending."

These two bits of propaganda frame what promises to be a slam-bang campaign over the next three months, one whose outcome will affect the state's finances and politics for years.

While Governor Brown was in Las Vegas trying to gin up support for his November tax measure at the California School Employees Association conference — whose leaders must have chosen Las Vegas as the conference site to help with Nevada’s unemployment rate because it is one of the few states with a worse unemployment than California – local governments are starting to pile taxes on to the November ballot.
How taxpayers will react facing a ballot full of taxes for both state and local government is not certain, but warning flags are being hoisted from the government parapets that voters just might object when faced with so many tax measures....

November’s statewide ballot will contain three tax increase measures (the governor and legislature’s Prop 30 on sales and income taxes; Prop 38 income tax for schools; Prop 39 corporate taxes for energy projects and the general fund). How many local taxes will appear on the ballot is not certain yet since not all local governments have made final ballot determinations. However, with the threat of bankruptcies facing a number of municipalities, indications are the number of tax and bond measures will be high.

There are discussions to add sales taxes, utility taxes, parcel taxes, and even taxes on sugary drinks in the Northern California city of Richmond and the Southern California city of El Monte.

...The urgent and repeated appeals, sent to millions of Mr. Obama’s supporters via e-mail and text messages, are a vivid reminder that the president’s campaign is likely to raise significantly less than Mitt Romney and Republicans for the third month in a row in July....

“My upcoming birthday next week could be the last one I celebrate as President of the United States, but that’s not up to me — it’s up to you,” Mr. Obama said to his supporters in an e-mail late last week.

Accompanying the e-mail was a link to donate in exchange for a chance to attend his “birthday get-together” in August.

The dire hand-wringing is partly tactical for a campaign that is likely to have more than enough money to execute its strategy. By appearing desperate, Mr. Obama’s campaign hopes it can persuade more of its supporters to donate now, rather than later.

But in fact, Mr. Obama is facing a quandary his 2008 campaign team never even contemplated: a rival whose fund-raising operation appears better positioned to tap into both the deep pockets of wealthy donors and the economic frustrations of average Americans.

In May, that translated into a $17 million edge for Mr. Romney. The next month, the Republican candidate and the party apparatus took in $37 million more than Mr. Obama and the Democratic party structure....

The appeals for donations occasionally recall the “Everything 80 percent off! Going out of Business” sales that try to entice customers into the store. And yet, Mr. Obama’s campaign team has clearly calculated that it is willing to risk leaving that kind of impression if it means raising more money.

While this is a great victory for every American who believes in national sovereignty and constitutional freedom, it’s only temporary. The U.N. plans to reconvene at a future date and go back to the drawing board....

Americans already know what the U.N. and its anti-gun allies consider “appropriate measures” when it comes to gun control. They want handgun bans, bans on semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, gun registration, lengthy waiting periods, and gun and ammunition rationing, to name just a few. This treaty would have given them an international mandate to pursue every one of these unconstitutional attacks on our freedom....
NRA members, gun owners, and freedom-loving Americans nationwide must remain vigilant, not only at the U.N., but also here at home in our upcoming national elections. The only way to ensure the safety of our sovereign right to keep and bear arms is to elect lawmakers at every level of government who vow to never sacrifice our freedom at the U.N. altar.

“If they put pressure on me, I would get annoyed,” said Lynn Sidnam, a Staten Island mother of two formula-fed girls, ages 4 months and 9 years. “It’s for me to choose.”

Under Latch On NYC, new mothers who want formula won’t be denied it, but hospitals will keep infant formula in out-of-the-way secure storerooms or in locked boxes like those used to dispense and track medications.

Twenty-eight legislators donated amounts ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 from their campaign or ballot measure committees between April and June 30 to bolster prospects for Brown's Proposition 30, which would raise sales taxes slightly on everyone and income taxes sharply on high-income Californians.,,,

Senate Democrats who contributed to Californians Working Together between April and June 30 were Alex Padilla of Los Angeles, $25,000; Kevin de Leon of Los Angeles, $20,000; and Ellen Corbett of San Leandro, $19,000.

Among Assembly Democrats, $10,000 contributions were received from Tom Ammiano of San Francisco, Toni Atkins of San Diego, Wes Chesbro of Arcata, Nancy Skinner of Berkeley, Norma Torres of Pomona, Luis Alejo of Watsonville, Bill Monning of Carmel, Isadore Hall of Compton, Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles, Roger Hernandez of West Covina, Bob Wieckowski of Fremont; Rich Gordon of Menlo Park, Susan Bonilla of Concord, Das Williams of Santa Barbara, Mike Gatto of Los Angeles, Nora Campos of San Jose, and Felipe Fuentes of Sylmar.

Californians Working Together's highest donors have been labor groups: California Teachers Association, $1.5 million; American Federation of Teachers, $1.2 million; Service Employees International Union Local 1000, $1 million; and the California State Council of Service Employees, $1 million; United Domestic Workers of America, $800,000; and the California Federation of Teachers, $800,000, state records show.

◼ From the comments: So Democrats, unable to get a tax increase through the Legislature (thank you Republicans!!!) are asking the voters to increase taxes on themselves.

The race had been closely watched nationally as one of the nation's most-vivid contrasts between the GOP mainstream and grassroots, conservative activists. But as results began to pour in, it turned out to be no contest. Cruz grabbed early leads in key cities around the state where Dewhurst had once enjoyed stronger name recognition, fundraising and political organization just weeks earlier....

Cruz got millions from national tea party groups and other conservative organizations including the Washington-based Club for Growth. He was endorsed by ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, radio talk show host Glen Beck, U.S. Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Kentucky's Rand Paul, as well as former GOP presidential hopeful and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

At a morning campaign stop in Houston, Cruz said he heard from voters statewide interested in changing what they view as insider-politics in Washington.

"That's the way the democratic process is supposed to work. It's not supposed to be a bunch of guys in a smoky room in Austin picking the next senator," Cruz added.

When they ask when the walls began to crumble for the GOP establishment, politicos will point to this race. Ted Cruz, the underfunded, under-famed grassroots conservative took on the abundantly funded, well-known Texas Lieutenant Governor and won....

This latest victory is arguably the biggest victory of the tea party movement, who've racked up an impressive cache of wins. Each candidate ran a good race, and the primary was as negative as expected, but this is politics, and politics is a blood sport.

It's no longer enough anymore to have an "R" after your name; to win a GOP primary you ought to have a conservative record and platform to boot. Gone are the days when big spending Republicans could coast through elections because the people didn't realize that they had choices. Ted Cruz positioned himself as a stark contrast to the status quo and was elected because of it.

The official said the bearded Islamists, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, brought the couple into the center of the town of Aguelhok from about 12 miles away in the countryside. The young man and woman were forced into holes about four feet deep, with their heads protruding, and then stoned to death at about 5 a.m. Sunday, the official said.

“They put them into the holes, and then they started throwing big rocks, until they were dead,” the official said, speaking by satellite phone from the remote desert town near the Algerian border.

“It was horrible,” he said, noting that the woman had moaned and cried out and that her partner had yelled something indistinct during the attack. “It was inhuman. They killed them like they were animals.”

Lest any member of the perpetually outraged class attack their keyboards in rage, let's remember the obvious. Congressman Weiner was caught engaging in cybersex and phonesex with multiple women. He sent a picture of his lower appendage through Twitter. The married Weiner became a laughingstock as the only married man to suffer the blowback of a sex scandal without even receiving the actual benefit of real sex....

This is the real Anthony Weiner. He is trying to take over the second toughest executive position in America after the presidency. Being Mayor of New York City requires a certain skill set. Rudy Giuliani was a federal prosecutor. Michael Bloomberg, for all of his flaws, created a business empire.

Anthony Weiner has never worked. To give a man the keys to the greatest mayoral kingdom without him ever having run anything cannot happen. To look police officers, firefighters, and EMTs in the eye without having any knowledge of what they go through is simply too much for this city. In the real world, the Dark Knight does not show up and save the day. Batman is fictional, but the challenge of running Gotham City is real.

“I wish you to be successful because this success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too. Gov Romney, get your success – be successful,” Walesa told Romney, according to a translator.

Apparently, we’re to believe that Romney’s week off from domestic campaigning was a “public relations disaster,” that it “didn’t go well,” that it could “cost him” in his run for the White House, etcetera. ABC even has a handy-dandy list of the supposed flubs of Romney’s “awkward foreign tour.”

Mitt Romney’s stop in Jerusalem will probably remain the highlight of his foreign trip, but his eloquent and powerful speech today in Warsaw deserves more notice than it will probably get. In his remarks, Romney suggests a theme for his trip as a whole and a rationale for visiting the three nations he chose to visit, and sketches the national qualities he finds worthy of praise.

In an email to supporters this morning, Obama said that he had given to his own reelection campaign for the first time as a symbolic gesture.

"On its own, what I gave won't be enough to surmount the unprecedented fundraising we've seen on the other side, both from our opponent's campaign and from the outside groups and special interests supporting him," Obama wrote. "But we have always believed that there's nothing we can't do when we all pitch in. That includes me."

What we have been living through is a breakdown of the great American jobs machine. Jobs have long been the best social program, the best economic program, and the best family program in America. No longer. The jobs are not there. Unemployment today is the worst since the Great Depression.

The unemployment statistics may be mind-numbing in the effort to portray the complexities of the national picture beyond the simple—and misleading—routine headline figures.... More at the link

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Mitt Romney attracting 47% of the vote, while President Obama earns support from 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. Fifty-five percent (55%) favor repeal of the president’s health care law. Most (57%) say they haven’t yet been affected by the law, but concerns about cost continue to be the top priority for health care reform. Just 14% believe that today’s children will be better off than their parents. That’s the lowest level of optimism ever measured.

On issues, Romney has an eight-point edge on the big one -- the economy -- plus sizable advantages on deficits, taxes and immigration...

Only 28 percent believe Mr. Obama has fulfilled his promise to deliver positive change for the country. Fifty-eight percent say he has not delivered change, while seven percent say he has delivered change that has been bad for the country. Mr. Obama's overall approval rating stands at 44 percent, with 46 percent disapproving. His approval rating on the economy is just 39 percent - 55 percent disapprove - and his approval rating on foreign policy is 41 percent. His approval rating on the economy has dropped five points since April.

Both candidates have net unfavorable ratings. Forty-eight percent of registered voters view the president unfavorably, while 36 percent view him favorably. Romney is viewed unfavorably by 36 percent and favorably by 32 percent. Nearly one in three say they do not yet have an opinion about the presumptive Republican nominee. Seven in ten Americans say the economy is in bad shape. While 24 percent say it is getting better - down from 33 percent in April - 30 percent say it is getting worse. That marks the highest percentage who say the economy is getting worse since December....

But the government's own Congressional Budget Office has just published a report whose statistics flatly contradict this claim. The CBO report shows that, while the average household income fell 12 percent between 2007 and 2009, the average for the lower four-fifths fell by 5 percent or less, while the average income for households in the top fifth fell 18 percent. For households in the "top one percent" that seems to fascinate so many people, income fell by 36 percent in those same years.
Why are these data so different from other data that are widely cited, showing the top brackets improving their positions more so than anyone else?
The answer is that the data cited by the Congressional Budget Office are based on Internal Revenue Service statistics for specific individuals and specific households over time. The IRS can follow individuals and households because it can identify the same people over time from their Social Security numbers....

All sorts of statements are made in politics and in the media as if that "top one percent" is an enduring class of people, rather than an ever-changing collection of individuals who have a spike in their income in a particular year, for one reason or another. Turnover in other income brackets is also substantial.

There is nothing mysterious about this. Most people start out at the bottom, in entry-level jobs, and their incomes rise over time as they acquire more skills and experience.

Politicians and media talking heads love to refer to people who are in the bottom 20 percent in income in a given year as "the poor." But, following the same individuals for 10 or 15 years usually shows the great majority of those individuals moving into higher income brackets....

To get the details, you’ll have to read the book. If you do, and you should, you will learn how Obama has set the stage for this power grab through the work of his “Sustainable Communities” initiative, which is dominated by key figures from the community organizing movement, including Obama’s former community organizing trainer and boss.

I am pumped up about Mitt Romney's speech in Israel — for both political reasons and policy ones — and believe it may represent a turning point in the campaign.

Politically — and this is important because it is critical that he win, or he won't be able to implement any policies and set America back on the road to recovery — Romney has shown again he is going to take the gloves off, deal with the issues directly and draw a stark contrast between his policies and Obama's record. The significance of this cannot be overstated. Some of the reasons John McCain lost in 2008 were his lackluster campaign, his refusal to showcase Obama's extreme liberalism and, thus, his failure to demonstrate why he would make a better president than Obama.

According to Gallup, Obama has already lost support among Jewish voters, down from 78 percent to 68 percent. If Romney shows that he is genuinely committed to Israel and that Obama is not, he'll make further inroads.

In an earlier piece, I expressed my view that to maximize his chances of victory, Romney has to attack Obama's record forcefully and comprehensively — and what a target-rich record it is. He must keep Obama so busy answering criticisms that he doesn't have as much time to obfuscate, scapegoat and level deceptive charges against Romney. In addition to highlighting Obama's disastrous policy failures, he must also present a positive, uplifting agenda. In short, he must communicate to voters his undivided commitment to America's greatness and its first principles and inspire confidence in the electorate that he will lead us to reclaim our greatness.

With his economic speeches in response to Obama's "you didn't build that" fiasco, Romney proved that he does have fire in his belly and that he is fervently dedicated to free enterprise, entrepreneurship and pro-growth policies. With his Israel speech, he laid down another marker — telling us he is going to take the offense and make Obama accountable for his unacceptable and misguided policies. He has no intention of allowing Obama to get away with misrepresenting his record — on the economy or on foreign policy, including his behavior toward our great ally Israel. Any concerns that Romney will adopt McCain's milquetoast campaign model are quickly diminishing.

The New Black Panthers case stems from a Election Day 2008 incident where two members of the New Black Panther Party were filmed outside a polling place intimidating voters and poll watchers by brandishing a billy club. Justice Department lawyers investigated the case, filed charges, and when the Panthers failed to respond, a federal court in Philadelphia entered a “default” against all the Panthers defendants. But after Obama was sworn in, the Justice Department reversed course, dismissed charges against three of the defendants, and let the fourth off with a narrowly tailored restraining order.

“The Court’s decision is another piece of evidence showing the Obama Justice Department is run by individuals who have a problem telling the truth,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The decision shows that we can’t trust the Obama Justice Department to fairly administer our nation’s voting and election laws.”

The party's executive board voted to endorse Proposition 30 at a weekend meeting in Anaheim. The measure would generate an estimated $8.5 billion in revenues assumed in the current state budget by temporarily raising income taxes on high earners and enacting a quarter percent hike in the state sales tax.

From the comments: What a surprise! Dems endorse tax encreases! Wow. Forget about about spending costs, pension refrom, and job creation.

The state deficit is at $16 billion. Stockton went bankrupt; Fresno is rumored to be next. Unemployment stays over 10% and in the Central Valley is more like 15%. Seven out of the last eleven new Californians went on Medicaid, which is about broke. A third of the nation’s welfare recipients are in California. In many areas, 40% of Central Valley high school students do not graduate — and do not work, if the latest crisis in finding $10 an hour agricultural workers is any indication. And so on.

Our culprit out here was not the Bomb (and remember, Hiroshima looks a lot better today than does Detroit, despite the inverse in 1945). The condition is instead brought on by a perfect storm of events that have shred the veneer of sophisticated civilization. Add up the causes. One was the destruction of the California rural middle class....Illegal immigration did its share.... Terrible governance was also a culprit...

A coarsening of popular culture — a nationwide phenomenon — was intensified, as it always is, in California. The internet, video games, and modern pop culture translated into a generation of youth that did not know the value of hard work or a weekend hike in the Sierra. They didn’t learn how to open a good history book or poem, much less acquire even basic skills such as mowing the law or hammering a nail. But California’s Generation X did know that they were “somebody” whom teachers and officials dared not reprimand, punish, prosecute, or otherwise pass judgment on for their anti-social behavior. Add all that up with a whiny, pampered, influential elite on the coast that was more worried about wind power, gay marriage, ending plastic bags in the grocery stores — and, well, you get the present-day Road Warrior culture of California....

Yet I am confident of better days to come. Sometimes I dream of the booming agricultural export market. Sometimes hopes arise with reports of gargantuan new finds of gas and oil in California. At other times, it is news of closing borders, and some progress in the assimilation of our various tribes. Sometimes a lone brave teacher makes the news for insisting that her students read Shakespeare. On occasion, I think the people silently seethe and resent their kingdom of lies, and so may prove their anger at the polls, perhaps this November.

Miniter, a two-time New York Times best-selling author, cites an unnamed source with Joint Special Operations Command who had direct knowledge of the operation and its planning.

Obama administration officials also said after the raid that the president had delayed giving the order to kill the arch-terrorist the day before the operation was carried out, in what turned out to be his fourth moment of indecision. At the time, the White House blamed the delay on unfavorable weather conditions near bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

But when Miniter obtained that day’s weather reports from the U.S. Air Force Combat Meteorological Center, he said, they showed ideal conditions for the SEALs to carry out their orders.

“President Obama’s greatest success was actually his greatest failure,” Miniter told The Daily Caller Friday. ”Leading From Behind,“ he said, traces the arc of six key Obama administration decisions, and shows how the president made them — and, often, failed to make them....

Now, the Harman family has announced that it is pulling back and has stopped investing in the Newsweek Daily Beast joint venture with Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp (IAC).

The Daily Beast, launched to great fanfare in 2008 by Barry Diller and Tina Brown, quickly built a readership on the Internet. But, as Reuters notes, "advertising sales never caught up with the buzz, and media reports have estimated losses at The Daily Beast at around $10 million annually."

...Insiders claim that the Harman family is also unhappy that Newsweek has not developed into a intellectual publication but has instead driven for sensationalism. The magazine has fallen from its one-time height of 4 million readers to somewhere around 1.5 million today.

The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. ...As the brief explains, “the objective of this effort is to procure riot gear to prepare for the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and other future similar activities.”
The total amount ordered is about 150 sets of riot helmets, thigh and groin protectors, hard-shell shin guards and other riot gear.

Surveillance drones have a new mission. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) they will be used for “public safety”. Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the DHS, told a House Committee meeting on Homeland Security that the more than 30,000 drones that will be deployed into American skies are just arbitrarily watching out for US citizens.

Napolitano stated : “With respect to Science and Technology, that directorate, we do have a funded project, I think it’s in California, looking at drones that could be utilized to give us situational awareness in a large public safety [matter] or disaster, such as a forest fire, and how they could give us better information.”
Secretly, DHS have been taking bid for contractors who can install “aerial remote sensing” which uses light detection and ranging (LIDAR) that would be part of the unmanned drone missions within domestic US territory.

Romney, like Obama, believes the option of a U.S. attack should also be "on the table." He has said he will do "the opposite" of what Obama would do in his approach to Israel.

"Make no mistake: the ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way," Romney plans to say later Sunday in a speech in Jerusalem. "My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country."

The Obama administration hasn't ruled out the military option, but Obama has so far been relying on economic sanctions and diplomatic negotiations to discourage Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

Google News is offering “Real-Time Coverage” of Mitt Romney’s trip. The second I saw that feature, I clicked and was wowed by the actual “dynamic” appearance of news stories the second that Google’s massive search engines find them. Try it. Neatly clustered at the bottom of the page are various videos and still shots of Romney in Israel, including video and stills of his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, his friend since the 1970s. (Romney meets with Netanyahu for a second time shortly, and he and Ann Romney will dine tonight with the Netanyahus sans staff and media.)

The conversations with voters also show how little the daily media circus of gaffes and campaign ads and surrogate attacks actually moves its intended targets. After months of heavy advertising by Romney, many voters knew only that he is Mormon, rich and not Obama.

This weekend, the Obama campaign kicks off the last 100 days of campaigning with 4,600 small events around the country, including Olympics-watching parties, house parties and “Barbecues for Barack.”

The Romney campaign is taking a different approach. The candidate is in Israel this weekend as part of an overseas tour designed to enhance his image as an international statesman.

“I’m not sure that 100 days out is going to feel much different than 105 days out or 95 days out,” said Ed Gillespie, a senior Romney adviser. He said the campaign thinks that less than 10 percent of the electorate should be considered truly “undecided.” Still, Gillespie said, in comparison with the Obama camp, “we’d rather play our hand than theirs.”

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